If He Had Been with Me

I am reading Wuthering Heights. It was assigned for school, and I woke up this morning and decided to read the first chapter in bed. It is late afternoon and I am still there. An hour ago, I finished the novel and fell asleep. I dreamed fitfully of Heathcliff locking me away, and when I woke, I picked the book up again and started over.

I do not think Cathy is a monster.

Jamie calls to tell me that he has a present for me. He went to a movie with Sasha this afternoon, the kind with guns and explosions that I refuse to see and Sasha is always up for. After a day spent in bed reading, I have a groggy feeling of unreality, as if I am only watching everything that is happening.

“Are you okay?” Jamie says.

“Yeah,” I say.

“You sound funny.”

“I was reading,” I say.

“Well, I’m coming over,” he says, “so try to be in one piece for me.”

After hanging up the phone, I stand in the middle of my room, unsure of what to do now. I stretch my arms above my head and my mind clears enough to think that I should get ready to see him. As I brush my hair, I think with some worry of Jamie driving in the snow, until I remember that it is a sunny autumn day; it was only snowing inside my book. It was snowing, and the narrator was seeing the remains of Cathy’s tragic mistake.

***

The sun is bright but the breeze carries the promise of a chill. Unaware that they have stayed past their season, my mother’s roses sway in this breeze and scatter a few petals among the red and gold leaves. I wonder if they can feel the cold. I wait for Jamie on the back porch steps.

I love Jamie just as much as I always have.

My love for Finny is buried like a stillborn child; it is just as cherished and just as real, but nothing will ever come of it. I imagine it wrapped up in lace, tucked away in a quiet corner of my heart. It will stay there for the rest of my life, and when I die, it will die with me.

One of the rose petals blows across the yellow leaves and stops on the toe of my boot.

I stare at that rose petal until I hear Jamie’s car stop in the driveway. I look up and see him smiling and closing the door.

“Hello, pretty girl,” he says, and I smile back. His handsome face surprises me as if I am seeing it for the first time. He sits down next to me and nudges me with his elbow.

“You awake?” he asks. I nod. This is my life, I realize. And I haven’t made any tragic mistakes yet. I’ve made a choice, yes, but no one suffers for it but me, and in the end, all will be well.

“How was the movie?” I ask.

“Awesome. And then we went to lunch and I got you this.” He hands me a hard plastic egg, the kind that snaps together that you get for a quarter from a machine outside of cheap diners. I laugh and Jamie grins at my response. It breaks open with a cracking sound. Inside is a poorly painted rubber dinosaur. Its eyes are wide as if it has been startled awake. I laugh again.

“I’ll name it after you and keep it on my desk,” I say.

“And this,” Jamie says, and he hands me a pink bouncy ball. Before I can throw it against the steps, he holds his fist out again. Jamie opens his fingers and a wire ring with a plastic stone drops into my palm. The stone is purple and as big as one of my knuckles.

“I spent all my quarters,” he says.

It almost sparkles in the weak light. He gave me another charm for our anniversary and he spent all his quarters for me on the afternoon we were apart. I cannot lose him.

“Thank you,” I say. “I’ll treasure it forever.”

Jamie kisses me and I lean against his shoulder and listen to him talk about the movie. He does not notice that my mind is far away.